Tag: Feminism

This year is quickly coming to a close, already it is like 2018 is literally knocking on our door so now it is the time when everyone starts to think what will the new year be like. What will I change? What resolutions will I make and then with any luck be able to keep past the third week of January? But this post is not about the future it is about the other thing we do at this time of year, we start to look back, reflect on what has happened in 2017, how are we different from the time we did this in 2016, what has shaped the way we see the world this year.

For me, this year was a year of major life change, we moved across the country, from the bustling, growing city of Denver to a TINY town in the mountains, when I say tiny I mean 300 year-round residents. So you work with the people that are your friends, your boss is married to your husbands boss (that is real life) and everything feels a little more connected. But it can also feel a little more isolated, and not just because the closest grocery store is an hour and a half away. No, it can feel a little isolating because even though in theory you should be surrounded by your 300 closest friends, sometimes you are not.

Now, I am not saying tiny towns don’t lend to the best friendships because I am finding that, that just might be the case. But I am in a town where everyone has pretty similar beliefs and similar upbringings so I often feel like I am putting on a contrived act of myself, not truly allowing all of me to show because it is a stark contrast to those around me, and not even realizing that I haven’t truly laughed in months. I believe many of the same things as those here, but definitely not all the same things, and I had an upbringing where those beliefs were not the only choice, I was free to find out what I believed in on my own. And I will be forever grateful for that.

So this year has been a lot of me finding myself and my footing what does it mean to be myself here, and who can I truly be myself with? It has been a lot of cringing at the news and praying for the state of our country. It has been a lot of tears over the gutting of education, health care, taxes, the lives of the dreamers, and so many other things I held dear.

This year has been full of weeks of longing to be anywhere but this small town, and then random moments of heartfelt gratitude for the place where we are and the people that surround us. It has been learning to dive into new friendships without reserve and finding the joy in old friends. It has been watching old friends go through new phases of life, some joyful like engagements and then some hard, like telling their parents they are in love with a woman when they are in fact also a woman.

And then the other night something happened that made me so grateful that we are in this place for another year, looking forward to 2018. The other night, a set of new friends invited us over for dinner with a group of people, it was like taking a deep breath after being underwater. I knew the minute she said #thefutureisfemale that I could relax a little more, I could shake off that contrived act and start to be myself. My soul that I hadn’t even realized was depleted began to be filled, in simple interactions it was revived and I thought if these friendships are what 2018 will be like, bring it on. Because in one night of soul filling I was able to reflect, love and realize what 2017 had been missing.

I hope that your 2017 has been filled with soul-filling, I hope that 2018 is filled with a renewed hope in America, in myself and in the people around me. I am ready, bring it on 2018 because in case you didn’t know #thefutureisfemale and that means the future is me, the future is now!

Once in college someone said that hanging out with me and one of my best friends was like hanging out with a pack of wolves. IE we chewed you up cause we were so mean. We laughed it off and made a joke about it then, that was probably 5 years ago now, but lately as I am trying to make new friends in the adult world I am thinking about that statement a lot and how it has actually impacted the way I look at myself and my interactions with the world.

I was that girl that when people introduced you to me they would say, She’s is kind of feisty, sassy, loud, bitchy. . . insert sort of offensive word but made to sound nice here. And when I was with my close group of friends I could laugh that off, and kind of play it up. Like yes I am pretty honest, and sometimes sassy but I think I am love able and you will appreciate me for it, and if you don’t well I have this tight group of friends that will. But as we grow up and that group of friends moves away or moves on . . . I am left being that “bitchy” girl that believes she doesn’t deserve friends.

Why would anyone want to be my friend if I am like a pack of wolves, essentially a wolf without her wolf pack. . it is just me and that doesn’t make me a wolf pack that makes me a bitch. And so I find myself making myself small, quiet, reserved so that I don’t offend people and make them not want to be my friend. Gone is the girl that was honest almost to a fault and here is a girl who hides herself and true feelings from almost everyone in her life.

I find myself so desperate to have friendships but then when someone likes me I feel empty because I can never truly be myself or I will go right back to that sassy black friend that you have to explain away to your friends.

I went to visit my best friends recently and met their friends in their new city, and this is how they explained me once again before I even met these people as a feisty girl, but why? Were you preparing them that I may be rude and unpredicatble? That I may say something and to not take me to seriously because I am feisty.

I don’t want to always be the feisty girl the girl that “Is a bitch but you’ll get used to it” I just want to be someone that is worthy enough to be loved for who she is. . someone that is confident enough again to be open and honest and still expect people to want to be my friend at the end. . .

I normally don’t consider myself much of a feminist, at least the the 2015 version. I am all for the feminists of 1919 and past decades, and it is not that I don’t believe in women’s rights but if I am going to put my voice out there about something I normally stick with poverty or race politics. But you know today something really got to me, that made me stop and think. .

How does your simple presence as a man negate my entire interaction as a woman?

Today Mr. and I bought a couch off of an app called NextDoor it basically connects you to your neighbors and is a great connection to things going on in the neighborhood. (It is also a hilarious outlet to watch overly sensitive people rant,within your neighborhood) But in this case we bought a couch, it is a wonderful couch and I am pleased with the experience, but at the end as we walked away the guy selling it to us turned and shook Mr.’s hand and said, “Pleasure doing business with you, see you around the neighborhood.” Then smiled and nodded at me as they walked by.

Pleasure doing business with YOU! Just YOU!

Ok so lets break this down,

I set up the meeting time

, I provided the OK to buy the couch,

I handed over the money

And it was MY car that we drove to pick it up.

So really what business did you do with my husband?

So maybe you helped him carry the couch to our house, while I carried the cushions but does that really constitute business?

I noticed the same sort of interactions when we were buying my new car, one salesmen we met with, knew it was my car, knew it would be my name on the title, and yet he would talk to Mr. as if he were buying a car for his 16 year old daughter. Who wasn’t in the room!

I felt like waving my hands in his face. . . um over here, I am making the decisions here!

Ok maybe these are little things, maybe I should let them go and not get so worked up about them but really when I used to do business when I was single and did not bring a man with me they could see me, they shook my hand and said pleasure doing business with you, with little ole me.

But now it is like I am just the “little Missus” well this little Missus, balances our budget, has a full time career and is fully capable of doing business on my own, just so all the Mr.’s in the world know!

So you know every chick flick shows the little girl with her barbie dream house playing wedding, it shows the two best friends dressed up in their moms wedding gown singing here comes the bride, it zooms in on the Wedding Dream Book that she has been building since she was 14, with all the colors, flowers, centerpieces and wedding etiquette rules all outlined, years of research to perfect it.

And I am sure there are those girls out there, my bridesmaid and college roommate who got married 2 years ago was one of them, her wedding took exactly 2 months to plan and that was only because that was how long it took to execute the plans she had already made.

However for me, and I am sure many others out there this was not the case, I hated Barbies and their dreamhouses, I often found myself playing with Lincoln logs and running outside, and I NEVER thought about my wedding. This is not to say I was a total tomboy, I wore a dress to school everyday till the third grade, I have famous pink cowboy boots I wore until the toes began to rip. I girly things and things not so girly, but in all of that, I NEVER dreamed of my wedding.

This might have to do with the fact that I grew up in a single parent household wear weddings were not attended regularly, there were no wedding pictures hanging in the house, and it was never expected that you needed to get married, or that you needed a man in your life at all.

So now here I am 24 and getting married and I am expected to know ALL of the wedding rules, who gets invited to the rehearsal dinner, what does the mother of the groom wear, when you do send out invites, is it rude to not allow guests, what are the traditions, what should a reception timeline look like. . . and my overwhelming answer is I DONT KNOW!

Now I am at that 32 day countdown till my wedding and The Knot and Wedding Wire have definitely been some of my best friends throughout this process, I have figured out every question that I have been asked, but this leaves me wondering,

Why am I supposed to have all of this picked out already?

Why is it assumed that I have been dreaming of this day for my entire life? Because guess what I wasn’t I didn’t even think I would get married until I met Mr. I was perfectly happy on my own and I enjoy that I can take care of myself.

So the world needs to embrace these women too, don’t expect too much of your brides, give them time to plan something they may not already have worked out in their heads, and don’t stare at them funny when they say that they don’t care what you wear, or how you do your hair, don’t make them feel less Bride-like because they aren’t obsessed with having the exact shade of grey throughout the entire venue and when they tell you that everything is going to be ok. .. trust them… not all of us are Bride-zillas to be!

Think Betty Draper via season 1, the domestic goddess that she was before shit really started hitting the fan.

Ok so these are all really funny and I love to poke fun at the domesticity that was instilled in the women of the past. But to be honest I love many of the aspects of the domestic goddess like Betty Draper with a few add ons

1) I love to cook dinner, but you better believe you are going to help clean up.

2) I will clean the kitchen. . you can clean the bathroom.

3) I will do the dishes. . .you can dry.

4) And you better believe that I am going to keep my full time job, and still work when we have children.

I love my job and I think a way to maintain is to be fulfilled with yourself in order to bring the best you to a relationship.

5) When those kids are born we will both be waking up at 3 am

6) And hopefully I will never have to start popping Valium like candy!

But this side of me falls under a lot of scrutiny in the modern age. How could I be content taking care of my husband, ensuring that he is fed, clean and has nice clothes to wear. Where is my feminist streak that screams, he is a grown man he can take care of himself?

Well damn right he can, and he has been taking care of himself for 7 years after he moved out of his parents before I came along. He is more than capable of taking care of all of these things on his own. (I do have to admit that his apartment is full of dishes, and it smells like a man cave most of the time, but he is surviving just fine without me) But what is a better way to show him that I love and value him than by doing these simple things that I have been doing for myself anyway.

And what right is it of anyone else to tell me that, this action is antiquated or anti-feminist?

But this is exactly what happened yesterday. A colleague of mine is in the process of getting a divorce, a younger man that we work with asked us both why we choose to get married as opposed to simply living together. And she went into a diatribe about how she got married because of societal norms and how marriage sucks the all of your personality as you try and conform to social norms.

While this may be true for her, to say that this is the case is all marriages places another stereotype on them. A marriage is a union between two people those two people have to know each other and value what they bring to the relationship, a marriage does not have to look like mine, or eerily similar to the women of the 50’s. A marriage has to look like two people working together to get through life. They are communicating and working as a team in order to succeed. That team can take on many different looks but each person has to feel valued in the team.

It is time to stop stating that I am anti-feminist because I happily sing while I cook and wash the dishes for my future husband. But it is also time for people to stop feeling like a marriage has to look any certain way. A marriage is as unique as the two people in it.

I have never been happier than I am when I can come home to make dinner before Ben gets home, my friend Shannon’s goal for next year is to get home in enough time to freshen up before her husband gets home, and my colleague that is getting a divorce needs to find a man that as she put it “lets her be the hippy that she is.”

In the end even Betty Draper started looking out for herself.

So remember don’t forget to be yourself and when in doubt, What would Betty Draper Do?